I Know What I Am Doing

Rupa Goswami describes bhakti of various kinds and he describes initial bhakti is komal bhakti, komal, very tender. So with that kind of tender bhakti, faith, some sort of faith, we come, but we can’t survive like that. We want some steadiness in our life, no ups and downs. Or if some other school of thought or anti-KrishnaConsciousness person talks to you and you are just in komal bhakti, he will just crush your bhakti, trample it, walk it all over, you are finished and you are converted and become a mouse again. If you do not wish to be a mouse again, you will be able to defend what you are doing, you are convinced. “I know what I am doing”, people say that. We should know that what we are doing is the right thing. Of course, so many fools, everyone says, “So, I know what I am doing”, but do the right things which Krishna expects us to do. Learned devotees expect us to do, we do that thing, that is the right thing. So, the “nishtha” is the matured stage of faith. When shraddha matures, matures, matures, matures and then shradha becomes nishtha. So what do you do?In the meantime there is the study of Bhagavatam, study of Bhagavad-gita.

Because what you do with shraddha,? You come to sadhu, “adau shraddha sadhu sanga.” And what do sadhus do? Bhajan kriya. They engage you in bhajan kriya and the very basic bhajan kriya is this “nityam bhagavata-sevaya, shravanam kirtanam.” Then one becomes free from all the undesirable, unwanted stuff that is called “anarthas.” One becomes free from anarthas, then in business fixed-up, steady, convinced and ready to move only forward.